Best way to take out YMIR mechs * minor spoilers *

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The Cain is always a good choice to deal with them or pretty much any heavy weapon, but that isn't always practical, or maybe you don't want to use your heavy weapons.

Miranda and Garrus are both useful party members because of Overload (and Miranda has Warp for their armor and Garrus has Sniper Rifles), though on Garrus's Loyalty Mission my companions always die because they teleport out of the best cover spot (it is behind and to the right of what triggers the fight with the 2 YMIR Mechs and they cannot reach you up there)

Another thing to do it focus on one and then for the final shot to kill them shoot them in the head, this will trigger a Cain type blast that deal significant damage to anything around the exploding YMIR (which would hopefully be the other YMIR, which they tend to crowd together for me so that isn't really an issue)

Of course of the top of my head I can't really think of too many 2 YMIR Mech encounters, Garrus's Loyalty Mission and the Blue Suns sidequest chain that starts on Joab are the only 2 that come to mind.

For the second one I personally always head for the left part of the screen and get up a ramp, you'll have to break a box, then take a right after breaking another box, this spot offers the best odds in my experience, and though technically the YMIR Mechs can actually walk up there they have only ever down that once in my dozens of ME2 Playthroughs (that particular time lead to a reload).

Another thing to be aware of is what gun type you are using.

Shotguns and SMG's do a crapload of bonus damage to shields (1.75x or 2x as much damage depending on the particular weapon), use this in conjunction with things like Disruptor Ammo (if you have Zaeed and bring him along, or happen to be an Infiltrator or a Soldier) and Overload/Energy Drain.

Heavy Pistols and Sniper Rifles do a crapload of bonus damage to armor (2x as much for all Heavy Pistols and the Mantis and Widow, the Viper deals like 1.65x as much damage or some similar number, the Incisor sucks for Shepard so avoid it), use this in conjunction with Incinerate, Warp, and Reave.

Assault Rifles deal bonus damage to all defenses but it varies with the rifle.

Now you might notice something here, every class has one weapon that is capable of dealing stellar damage versus a particular defense, so switch as necessary between weapon types.

"I love nailing Asari, so ageless and superior. Then you get them and they squeal like schoolgirls"- Gianna Parasini, Mass Effect 2.

Soldier: Shotguns are you technical best offense versus shields but none of the base shotguns exactly have great range and getting up close with one YMIR mech is dangerous enough (reference: any Vanguard's first time fighting an YMIR mech), 2 is almost impossible (it can be done but it isn't for the faint of heart).

So unless you have the Geth Plasma Shotgun, your options are more limited, the simplest thing would be to stick with your Assault Rifle and use Disruptor Ammo on it until you remove one of the things' shields, after you get one to Armor switch to your Sniper Rifle (also equip it with Disruptor Ammo Snipers don't need Incendiary's Armor damage bonus) and start pumping rounds into the most wounded ones head to trigger its death explosion.

Kill the second one as necessary, also make sure to make copious use of Adrenaline Rush as it really speeds up your Weapon's killing time (also a further reason you do not need Incendiary Ammo on your Sniper)

Engineer: Overload + SMG for Shields and Heavy Pistol + Incinerate for Armor, after that you can contain the one at health with either Cryo Blast or AI Hacking (should you choose to get it) until you get the either one to a sufficiently weakened state, after that proceed to kill whichever one with a Headshot and the resulting explosion should kill them both.

With Infiltrator there really isn't much beyond Cloak and Shoot until dead, unless you use Incinerate to deal with their armor, the nice thing here is that you won't be shot when cloaked so you will have time to line up your headshot(s).

If I remember correctly Singularity will actually hold fully shielded YMIR mechs still for a little while (that effect definitely works on other enemies with defenses I just don't remember if it works on YMIR Mechs) so you theoretically could hold one of them in place and focus on damage whichever one isn't trapped in your singularity.

Another thing for Adept is that Pull will affect an YMIR Mech at Health, they will not go floating away but they are at least susceptible to it, this means you can Warp detonate them, which since YMIR mechs stand close together for me (certainly within the 5m or 7m of a Warp Detonation) that lets me deal some excellent damage to the second YMIR mech fairly quickly.

Yeah Vanguard has the short end of the stick when it comes to fighting 2 YMIR Mechs, I'll be straight up and admit that I have never survived a double YMIR Mech encounter where I just straight charged into the fight, and I have over 20 Vanguard playthroughs in this game.

So then this leaves you with the problem of having to whittle down one of them and killing it off, one YMIR mech isn't too bad for Vanguards, 2 is a bit much (at least without Heavy Weapons)

Another problem for Vanguard is that Charge doesn't stagger YMIR Mechs whereas it will stagger every other Chargeable enemy in the game (including Scions). This is where one of the problems stems from for Vanguards, immediately after Charging your enemy you are still going to be eating Minigun fire and potentially a rocket.

Now factor in 2 YMIR Miniguns and the picture really isn't pretty, play it safe until one is dead then deal with the other as you please.

"I love nailing Asari, so ageless and superior. Then you get them and they squeal like schoolgirls"- Gianna Parasini, Mass Effect 2.

Use Stasis as your bonus power, it doesn't matter what class you are playing.

1) Cast Stasis. If you aren't aware, Stasis completely ignores protections, so you don't have to remove the shield or anything like that.2) YMIR falls down when Stasis wears off.3) Shoot Stasis while it is standing back up. Due to the various damage bonuses you are getting before the YMIR stands back up, it is legitimately possible to one shot a fully shielded, fully armored YMIR on Insanity.4) If you somehow have not already killed it before it stands up again, repeat the steps because Stasis already recharged.

^ You can start shooting as soon as it starts falling, not just once it's hit the ground.

Also, if it matters TC, using Stasis like that is abusing a bug. Stasis was designed to give a massive damage bonus like that, but because of the game not registering the Stasised target as an enemy until it gets back up, you do damage to it as if you were on Casual.

However, with Stasis's intended design, you'd still 1 shot most targets with a shotgun anyway. So, the only targets really effected by the bug are anything at or above a Krogan's toughness.

Other advantageous bugs being a Squadmate with an Incisor, getting Mordin's Passive (though, technically that's countering a disadvantageous bug that every other squadmate suffers), and one I know I'm forgetting.

Also, if it matters TC, using Stasis like that is abusing a bug. Stasis was designed to give a massive damage bonus like that, but because of the game not registering the Stasised target as an enemy until it gets back up, you do damage to it as if you were on Casual.

It's really not much of a bug exploit. Even if there was no bug and you were on Insanity, killing YMIR after Stasis still wouldn't have been difficult, the difficulty damage scaling isn't that much of a factor. It's just a matter of whether it's one shot or two.

Other advantageous bugs being a Squadmate with an Incisor, getting Mordin's Passive (though, technically that's countering a disadvantageous bug that every other squadmate suffers), and one I know I'm forgetting.

The bug to the Incisor only applies to the fact it's name doesn't change as you buy upgrades. The Incisor just happens to have the right combination of traits for how the AI works and how their damage penalty works.

smeech8000 posted...

IIRC there is a pretty small window to get the damage bonus... and it is only as the mech comes out of Stasis and starts to fall down. Check:

The bug is a small window, the intended damage bonus is longer. The intended bonus is the ragdoll damage bonus and you usually want to get point blank while you are at it, and potentially throw in critical and anything else you can possibly get.

The bug to the Incisor only applies to the fact it's name doesn't change as you buy upgrades. The Incisor just happens to have the right combination of traits for how the AI works and how their damage penalty works.

You got me to actually test it, and it seems you are right. Some sources say it ignores DamageHench, other that it ignores the difficulty mod (which I really doubt, but I figured that its difficulty mod was messed up, but not totally ignored). But after messing around with it, a triple headshot on shields does the same damage as a Mantis headshot for Garrus. Which is intended, Mantis would win with Shepard, but the Incisor has a much higher DamageHench.

It's really not much of a bug exploit. Even if there was no bug and you were on Insanity, killing YMIR after Stasis still wouldn't have been difficult, the difficulty damage scaling isn't that much of a factor. It's just a matter of whether it's one shot or two.

I guess it matters when you use it. A lone YMIR will make pretty much zero difference. A YMIR with some back up, and it gives you a leg up only needing the one shot. Still, I was mostly just pointing it out. Stasis was designed to be broken, adding a bit more to it with the bug isn't too big a deal.